When Did Things Go To Pot?

[Zoupa]

He'll be here all week folks, try the veal.

[Threviel]

Swedish perspective: The liberalisation during the 90s and 00s. Whilst on paper very good, more freedoms and less taxes and lot's of niceties it also created present day inequalities. The rich get richer faster than ever and the poor get richer slower than the rich. This creates tensions which causes political extremism.

Never ever have almost all people had it so good, but there is an impression of huge differences where the quite well off and quite spoiled working class turn to extremism because of them feeling poor. The leftist and rightist populist movements strengthen those feelings and try to aim them at the rich and the immigrants.

So, whilst on paper the liberalisation has meant more freedom and more wealth and a richer and happier populace, it has left a feeling of inequality that risks a counter-reaction.

The lesson to be learned is probably that the ruling elite needs to better explain their actions and perhaps that too much inequality is a bad thing that should be addressed.

[crazy canuck]

Swedish perspective: The liberalisation during the 90s and 00s. Whilst on paper very good, more freedoms and less taxes and lot's of niceties it also created present day inequalities. The rich get richer faster than ever and the poor get richer slower than the rich. This creates tensions which causes political extremism.

Never ever have almost all people had it so good, but there is an impression of huge differences where the quite well off and quite spoiled working class turn to extremism because of them feeling poor. The leftist and rightist populist movements strengthen those feelings and try to aim them at the rich and the immigrants.

So, whilst on paper the liberalisation has meant more freedom and more wealth and a richer and happier populace, it has left a feeling of inequality that risks a counter-reaction.

The lesson to be learned is probably that the ruling elite needs to better explain their actions and perhaps that too much inequality is a bad thing that should be addressed.

A piece in the New York Times this weekend had a similar take.  The culprit identified was what they called the Great Inflation of the 70s, which lead to the politics of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich etc. which occurred in the 80s and created the situation we are now in.

[Threviel]

Swedish perspective: The liberalisation during the 90s and 00s. Whilst on paper very good, more freedoms and less taxes and lot's of niceties it also created present day inequalities. The rich get richer faster than ever and the poor get richer slower than the rich. This creates tensions which causes political extremism.

Never ever have almost all people had it so good, but there is an impression of huge differences where the quite well off and quite spoiled working class turn to extremism because of them feeling poor. The leftist and rightist populist movements strengthen those feelings and try to aim them at the rich and the immigrants.

So, whilst on paper the liberalisation has meant more freedom and more wealth and a richer and happier populace, it has left a feeling of inequality that risks a counter-reaction.

The lesson to be learned is probably that the ruling elite needs to better explain their actions and perhaps that too much inequality is a bad thing that should be addressed.

A piece in the New York Times this weekend had a similar take.  The culprit identified was what they called the Great Inflation of the 70s, which lead to the politics of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich etc. which occurred in the 80s and created the situation we are now in.

Might be so. I have warmed to the idea that we should focus on happiness. And happiness, once your basic needs are satisfied, isn't more money or a better wage. From what I understand from research happiness is, to make a trivial example, not to own a Rolls Royce, happiness is that your neighbour does not have a better car than you. If you have a Mercedes and he has a Rolls Royce you will be less happy than if you both drove Fiat. Your basic needs are satisfied and you both have nice cars.

What the deregulation and liberalisation did was the first, everyone got it better but some got it even betterer, perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

[mongers]

Might be so. I have warmed to the idea that we should focus on happiness. And happiness, once your basic needs are satisfied, isn't more money or a better wage. From what I understand from research happiness is, to make a trivial example, not to own a Rolls Royce, happiness is that your neighbour does not have a better car than you. If you have a Mercedes and he has a Rolls Royce you will be less happy than if you both drove Fiat. Your basic needs are satisfied and you both have nice cars.

What the deregulation and liberalisation did was the first, everyone got it better but some got it even betterer, perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

Fiats are fun, but not reliably so.

[The Brain]

Swedish perspective: The liberalisation during the 90s and 00s. Whilst on paper very good, more freedoms and less taxes and lot's of niceties it also created present day inequalities. The rich get richer faster than ever and the poor get richer slower than the rich. This creates tensions which causes political extremism.

Never ever have almost all people had it so good, but there is an impression of huge differences where the quite well off and quite spoiled working class turn to extremism because of them feeling poor. The leftist and rightist populist movements strengthen those feelings and try to aim them at the rich and the immigrants.

So, whilst on paper the liberalisation has meant more freedom and more wealth and a richer and happier populace, it has left a feeling of inequality that risks a counter-reaction.

The lesson to be learned is probably that the ruling elite needs to better explain their actions and perhaps that too much inequality is a bad thing that should be addressed.

A piece in the New York Times this weekend had a similar take.  The culprit identified was what they called the Great Inflation of the 70s, which lead to the politics of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich etc. which occurred in the 80s and created the situation we are now in.

Might be so. I have warmed to the idea that we should focus on happiness. And happiness, once your basic needs are satisfied, isn't more money or a better wage. From what I understand from research happiness is, to make a trivial example, not to own a Rolls Royce, happiness is that your neighbour does not have a better car than you. If you have a Mercedes and he has a Rolls Royce you will be less happy than if you both drove Fiat. Your basic needs are satisfied and you both have nice cars.

What the deregulation and liberalisation did was the first, everyone got it better but some got it even betterer, perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

I like to have a society where kids can get better than basic healthcare and education.

[Admiral Yi]

perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

Or perhaps the guy with the Mercedes can just get over it.

[dps]

That anyone is so unfortunate as to own a Fiat makes me sad.

[Josquius]

Swedish perspective: The liberalisation during the 90s and 00s. Whilst on paper very good, more freedoms and less taxes and lot's of niceties it also created present day inequalities. The rich get richer faster than ever and the poor get richer slower than the rich. This creates tensions which causes political extremism.

Never ever have almost all people had it so good, but there is an impression of huge differences where the quite well off and quite spoiled working class turn to extremism because of them feeling poor. The leftist and rightist populist movements strengthen those feelings and try to aim them at the rich and the immigrants.

So, whilst on paper the liberalisation has meant more freedom and more wealth and a richer and happier populace, it has left a feeling of inequality that risks a counter-reaction.

The lesson to be learned is probably that the ruling elite needs to better explain their actions and perhaps that too much inequality is a bad thing that should be addressed.

A piece in the New York Times this weekend had a similar take.  The culprit identified was what they called the Great Inflation of the 70s, which lead to the politics of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich etc. which occurred in the 80s and created the situation we are now in.

Might be so. I have warmed to the idea that we should focus on happiness. And happiness, once your basic needs are satisfied, isn't more money or a better wage. From what I understand from research happiness is, to make a trivial example, not to own a Rolls Royce, happiness is that your neighbour does not have a better car than you. If you have a Mercedes and he has a Rolls Royce you will be less happy than if you both drove Fiat. Your basic needs are satisfied and you both have nice cars.

What the deregulation and liberalisation did was the first, everyone got it better but some got it even betterer, perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

Yes. I think this is heavily tied in with the whole conspicuous wealth thing that many poor people fall victim too; blowing their money on the latest phone and nicest clothes just to prove that they aren't actually poor.

[Oexmelin]

Or perhaps the guy with the Mercedes can just get over it.

Or perhaps the guy with the Porsche can just stop being so greedy.

More seriously, democracy relies on the sentiment of equality in dignity, in citizenship, and before the law. The way that the Mercedes guy can "get over it" is to go back to the sort of deeply unequal political societies that have dominated the West for millennia. The point is not the Mercedes, or the Porsche: it's that the Mercedes and the Porsche stand as proxies for our relative condition in the eyes of other.

[Berkut]

perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

Or perhaps the guy with the Mercedes can just get over it.

What is the point of comments like this?

It's like saying that we could reduce depression if depressed people just quit being so unhappy.

OK. I guess it would be great if we could just change human nature by feeling smug, but given that apparently that doesn't really work, doesn't it make more sense to talk about how to make a workable society given that people are in fact greedy and often irrationally envious?

[Eddie Teach]

perhaps we should have aimed for Fiats for everyone.

Or perhaps the guy with the Mercedes can just get over it.

What about the guy with the bus pass?

[PDH]

When did things go to pot and why?

January 7, 1966.  Trust me on this one...

[Admiral Yi]

Or perhaps the guy with the Porsche can just stop being so greedy.

More seriously, democracy relies on the sentiment of equality in dignity, in citizenship, and before the law. The way that the Mercedes guy can "get over it" is to go back to the sort of deeply unequal political societies that have dominated the West for millennia. The point is not the Mercedes, or the Porsche: it's that the Mercedes and the Porsche stand as proxies for our relative condition in the eyes of other.

You're mixing arguments.  Equality before the law is not the same thing as social status.  And envy of social status is exactly what I'm saying Mercedes boy should get over.

[Oexmelin]

You're mixing arguments.  Equality before the law is not the same thing as social status.  And envy of social status is exactly what I'm saying Mercedes boy should get over.

They are obviously intimately intertwined. I can't even claim it: it was one of Tocqueville's most astute observations. In a democratic society, because of equality before the law is upheld as a principle, social status has to be made a lot more amorphous than in strictly hierarchical societies with legal privileges. That uncertainty leads to a lot more comparison between you and your neighbors, a form of inherent restlessness. If you want the Mercedes person to be a stoic and not care about social status, you ought to require the same from Porsche guy (that is the virtuous Republic that many Enlightenment figures espoused), or you want to enshrine different social status in some form of caste - and that is obviously undemocratic. 

And this is even before considering the more material argument that equality before the law is heavily skewed by wealth.